The 47 county governments in Kenya face a moment of reckoning as the coronavirus pandemic menacingly prepares to test the quality of their investment in the crucial health sector since 2013.

Health was made a devolved function 10 years ago as a way to bring services closer to the people and governors have since been in charge of basically all matters touching on health in their respective units.

Billions of shillings have been pumped into devolved healthcare, a situation that has accorded small counties such as Lamu the privilege of allocating over a billion shillings to the sector in a just one year.

Health facilities across the counties have also been upgraded and equipped with modern medical equipment courtesy of the Managed Equipment Services (MES) programme that started in 2015.

But while most Governors have been accused of playing politics with the health and lives of Kenyans, the facilities have not been tested to the levels that the coronavirus pandemic threatens to.

The early phases of the COVID-19 response has seen most counties spared the burden as the cases have been mainly recorded in Nairobi and Mombasa where the national government has spearheaded containment efforts.

But the virus has now spread to counties such as Mandera, Homa Bay, Kiambu, Kajiado, Murang’a, Kitui, Nakuru and Siaya.

This has tossed the respective county bosses to the deep end. They face an acid test in showing their preparedness to combat the highly-contagious disease and save the mainly elderly and poor population from its devastation.

The governors will have to be thoroughly prepared for this pandemic. They need to imagine the worst-case scenario and ensure they are ready for it. It should not be lost on them that the lives of millions of people in their counties depend on the actions they take. COVID-19 is a disease that must be taken seriously.

Globally, it has so far sickened over 2.5 million people and caused the deaths of more than 180,000 others. But the good news is that individuals in excess of 680,000 have fully recovered.

If the governors rise to the occasion and tackle the disease head-on, Kenya has a unique opportunity to flatten the curve and avoid the health care disasters witnessed in the worst-hit countries, such as Italy, Spain, and the US.

So far, a few governors are making impressive preparations for the pandemic. Alfred Mutua of Machakos has, for example, converted a stadium into a makeshift hospital, with a bed capacity of 200.

The idea was heavily borrowed from countries that have successfully contained the virus, among them China where the coronavirus originated. China managed to build a 1,000-bed hospital with 30 intensive care wards in about a week. Brazil has converted an Olympic Games stadium to a healthcare facility for COVID-19 patients.

The innovative facility in Machakos is expected to help limit interactions between COVID-19 patients and those suffering from other diseases at the county’s referral hospital, thereby reducing chances of the disease spreading and easing the burden on the latter. Mutua plans to launch a similar facility at Mavoko sub-county.

In Mombasa, Hassan Joho has been forced to hurriedly launch a 150-bed capacity hospital at the Technical University of Mombasa since the Coast General Referral Hospital, which has less than 20 ICU beds, is already overwhelmed.

The Murang’a county government has moved to hurriedly put up a 35-bed ICU at the Murang’a Level 5 Hospital; the only ICU unit in the county so far is found at Kiria-ini mission hospital. Other governors are worse off and appear lost and without a clue whatsoever on where to start in this war.

There have been reports of some of them staying in their Nairobi homes at a critical time they are supposed to be coordinating relief efforts and the work of health care and social workers, the frontline soldiers. This is unacceptable.

All the 47 Governors have no option but to pull up their socks and live up to the expectations of Kenyans.

At a time when the maximum input of every medic is needed, this is not a time for medical professionals to grumble about delayed salaries or the lack of personal protective equipment.

There is no margin for error.

The governors face baptism by fire as they have a one-off chance to prove their mettle in leadership during an extraordinarily difficult period.

This time round, they have no room for failure if they are to drown growing calls to take the health function back to the national government.

The writer is Tom Juma, a regular commentator on social, economic and political affairs.

The views expressed here are his and do not in any way represent the position of TUKO.co.ke

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